Paisley Diet Journal

Journaling Your Way To Diet Success

For almost any diet you’re on, it all comes down to calories in vs. calories out. The thing is, unless you keep track of those calories, you might be getting far more calories than you think.

A 2012 study revealed that keeping a journal of your calories — “journaling” your diet — is a way to keep on top of it. Here’s the WebMD article about the study.

“Researcher Anne McTiernan, MD, PhD, says based on the study results, the number one piece of advice someone should follow if they want to lose weight is, ‘Keep a food journal.’ ” — quote from the WebMD article.

Journaling is not another promise of a weight-loss miracle. But it is a critical step toward really understanding where your calorie bombs are coming from so you can get it under control.

The Paisley Diet Journal

This journal is spiral-bound and about the size of a paperback book, so it’s easy to keep in your purse or brief case and use every day. The journal includes:

Instructions for using the journal and for figuring your daily averages.

Pages for tracking your daily calories in and out for a year.

Five “Diet Snapshots” for you to record your starting point and your progress.

A special section in the back for recording the calories in your favorite foods and calories burned by your favorite exercises.

Why not Amazon? This is a spiral-bound notebook (5.5″ x 8.25″). Amazon’s publishing process does not use for this format, so we used Lulu. But no fear: Lulu is a highly respected publishing platform with a long track record!

By keeping a journal of your diet you can:

Make informed decisions about what you eat

Always know how many more calories you can have that day

Make up for “slipping” on your diet by tracking exercise

Create a cheat-sheet reference of the foods you most often eat

Have a complete record of your weight, inches, and foods

Let’s Be Realistic About Weight Loss

This is not yet another diet. It is a way to help you succeed at whatever diet you are already on. It doesn’t matter if you are on Atkins, South Beach, or some other diet. Because almost whatever diet you are on, you need to track your calories in and out!

What I’ve learned is that the key to keeping weight off is to stop dieting! Don’t say to yourself “I can’t eat that because I’m on a diet.” Instead learn the things that you CAN eat and then change your normal eating habits.

I learned this by keeping track of everything I ate, then I could see the patterns in what I was eating.

The Paisley Diet Journal starts with a 14-page discussion of how it all works, then it provides charts to cover 52 weeks, plus “Snapshot” pages where you can record your progress. Here’s what those pages look like (Click image to see full-size version of full page):

(Click to see the full pages)

Whether you’re just starting a diet, or have reached a plateau and want to get a new boost… now’s the time to try something different.

How many calories should you get every day?

So how many are too many? 1200 calories a day works for some people, for others it can be 800, and for you it could be something completely different. Journaling your diet will also help you pinpoint exactly that calorie level where you need to be to lose or maintain your weight.